


Welcome Home

by Darkforesttrails



Category: The Blackout Club (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-15 17:06:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18673894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkforesttrails/pseuds/Darkforesttrails
Summary: You know how sometimes you have to go on a mission to save the town by breaking into your own house? Boy, does that come equipped with feelings.





	Welcome Home

**Author's Note:**

> Hey you should  
> Totally go check out Skegulium, who owns Archer  
> A+++

"More audio bugs?" You ask, rubbing the back of your neck and peeking over Archer's shoulder at his phone. It's still aching from looking over your notebook all night. Archer half nods, focused as he scrolls through the mission details.

"More audio bugs. I guess we haven't been getting clear feed from the ones we have out already." He groans, his face pale, and you pat him on the shoulder. 

"What do you mean we aren't going to get clear feed when we stick the freaking things in the garage? I would never have imagined." You roll your eyes, shaking your head. You don't know which spot is worse between the garage and the bathrooms, honestly. At least the garage is more annoying than gross, you suppose. Either way, you're glad nobody assigns you to monitor the feeds.

Your friend opens his mouth to respond to that, but he stops as his eyes fall on the screen once more. His jaw continues hanging and he goes stiff under your hand. You can vaguely see him look from his phone to you from the corner of his eye. You frown.

"Archer? Archer, what's wrong?"

"Sophie, check this out." He holds up the phone, his tone quiet, and you take it from him to scan through the nightmare of emoji code. Another item on your list of reasons to sue Chorus for emotional damage. 

There's a few new addresses on the list: The house by the corner store where old lady Holbrook resides in all her creepiness, the Johnson residence (you still wish you'd punched Will Johnson in the nose when you had the chance), and 118-

You freeze, feeling your heart sink all the way down to your feet. 

"What the hell, this is my house!" Your voice is an awkward, squeaky mix between surprise and indignation. One part of you wants to protest putting bugs in your own house, where you actually live. The other part of you, however, reminds you that you live in a boxcar and haven't been home in ages. Technically speaking, you don't live there anymore. 

You don't have to deal with them and they don't have to deal with you. Everyone's happy, right? That's what you keep telling yourself, anyway.

That doesn't make it any easier to stare down the phone. You don't even notice how tightly you're gripping it until you feel Archer trying to tug it out of your hands. 

"Hey, hey! Be careful." He says, gentle, as he stands up to rub your shoulder while you loosen your grip on his phone. "You don't have to go, you know. We can hit up another house and have someone else-"

"I want to go." You cut him off. It startles you how quiet and broken your voice sounds right now. It makes you angry just to hear yourself. You grit your teeth and ball your fist, feeling the pain from your still (poorly) healing injury shoot up your arm and into your shoulder. It hurts like hell, obviously, but it's at least giving you something to focus on besides feelings. So there's that, at least.

God, you hate having feelings. 

"I'll be fine." You add, forcibly sounding more determined as you snatch your grappling hook off the table, wrapping it around yourself. 

"Sophie..." Archer starts, trailing off when you shake your head and jump out the door of the boxcar. 

You'll talk later. Right now you just want to move.

\--------------

Well. You're home, now. You guess. It's not a comfort.

You didn't take the front door. The porch light would have given you away in a second. Instead, you left Archer on lookout while you climbed up the old trellis, hands stuffed in your sleeves to avoid the splinters, and forced open your own window. 

You're glad your folks never nailed it shut like they always threatened to after the first time they caught you sneaking out. You suspect they dropped it when they realized you only ever went to Archer's place anyway. It wasn't like you were hard to find when they wanted to drag you off for a good scolding. And they liked Archer's parents.

It was always surprising to you growing up, considering how much they seemed to dislike everyone else you hung out with. But hindsight and all that, you suppose. 

As soon as your window is open, you take off your muddy shoes off and hold onto them as you climb inside. They get set upside-down on the carpet, positioned carefully so they don't tip and make a mess. You mentally recall your list of places to hit up: The bedroom, the kitchen, the foyer, the bathroom....

Wow, this sure is adding to your list of reasons to just never go home again. Alongside literally everything else. 

You start to pad across the floor towards your bedroom door, but something stops you. And what stops you is the room itself. You stand in the middle of the floor, quietly glancing over the dark silhouettes of your things, backlit by the light from the window. You sigh, pulling out your flashlight as you take a look around. 

Everything is right where you left it. Somehow, that doesn't make you feel any less anxious. 

"So, Thee-I-Dare..." You start, mostly to comfort yourself. You don't know if he's here right now or not. Technically speaking, he's always there, but you doubt he's here right at this second. He seems to work on roughly the same rules as the tuning dial on the radio. Still, pretending he's here helps.

"This is, you know, my bedroom! Or, it was. I don't exactly live here anymore. I live in the woods and I steal toothpaste and that's just the beginning of things wrong with my life, but that's besides the point. Over there is my camera, can you believe I wanted to be a photographer at one point? And this is-wow, I would kill to have a real bed at the boxcar, not gonna lie." Your light falls on your bedspread, still folded into a Fake-Sophie-shaped mound from the night you ran away. You snort. Boy, did you do a piss poor job on--

On...that...

 

Your face goes blank and your heart drops as the realization hits you. 

The bed is...exactly the way you left it, in fact. Even down to the spot where you left your dummy sticking out the wrong way. They didn't even look under the blanket. 

You run your hand over the dark fabric and see a trail of dust swirl in the beam while slapping the bed kicks up a righteous cloud. You can't explain why, but your throat tightens and your mouth feels dry. You turn your attention to the rest of the room. There's a thick layer of dust on the desk. Nobody's touched it in ages. Your old polaroid's gone from black to grey on the dresser. There's little curls of dust and lint dotting the carpet. The only change you can see is the empty soda can on the floor; it was sitting on your nightstand and you were too lazy to toss it before you made your escape. Even the doorknob, on closer inspection, is completely covered in the stuff. The inside of the knob. For good measure, you even check the drawers in your dresser and your nightstand. You might not remember the exact order of contents, but you don't think anything is missing either. 

Nobody's gone in your room since you left. 

Something breaks. You don't know what it is or how to put a name to it, but something completely breaks inside you. You can feel it snapping like an overstretched thread and falling to useless ends in the middle. You step back, sitting on the edge of your quiet, dusty bed. Your head spins and you can't get yourself together as you connect the dots. 

Nobody came in here. Nobody tried to use anything in your room to find you. Did they even want to? Archer's parents sent out flyers all over the place looking for him and begging him to come home. You never even showed up as a footnote in the paper, let alone on any posters or milk cartons. You fall back on the bed. You want to enjoy the sensation of having a proper bed under your back for the first time in god knows how long, but the sensation is dulled. You just feel numb inside. Numb and broken and hurt and--

You scrub hard at your eyes with your palms, trying to will that thought away. This isn't the time. You have stuff you're supposed to be doing here. You haven't even started planting these stupid bugs yet. You've just been here wondering if maybe you did make a mistake after all and if your sadsack excuses for parents did secretly give a shit about you somewhere deep down. At least enough of a shit to actually miss you or look for you because they were worried or even think about you. At least you know the answer to all of those questions is a definite no. 

Your phone buzzes. Archer's asking if you're almost done. Nobody's entered the house still, but your friendly neighborhood sleepers are getting too close for comfort. You could kick yourself for putting your stupid goddamn feelings over actually getting this work done and getting you and Archer out in one piece. 

'Almost done.' You lie, jumping to your feet. You have to get started and you have to get started fast. You swear you're on fire as you tear through the house, doing the fastest rush job you've ever done trying to install these things. Along the way, you have to force yourself not to check if you're still in the family photos. You have to force yourself not to recall every memory of sitting in the living room or doodling in the kitchen or trying to get your parents invested in your hobbies for a change. You've wasted enough time here. Besides, how did you not expect them to want to kick you out of the family after you split? Your parents only told you 100 times to your face that they wished you'd never been born and this was just the perfect excuse to pretend you don't exist, right?

Hell, maybe they'll replace you with a daughter who isn't a complete disappointment. And then she can be in the photos and nobody will send her to bed without supper and someone will pretend to care about her when she's missing and she'll be the picture-perfect sunday school cult girl that you never were. You take that fury and put it straight to planting bugs with more aggression than anyone could have thought possible. It's a wonder you didn't crack the outlet coverings. 

'Sophie, what's taking you so long?!'  
'Sorry, sorry! Done now, I promise!' You decided for the sake of time, you'd skip the one in the bathroom. The feed readers can thank you later. It's only as you're done and can hear the sounds of the sleepers coming closer to your house that you realize you've had your shoes off this entire time. You're not entirely sure why you took them off. A quick dash upstairs is all it takes to grab them. 

Before you do, however, something tugs at you. It's more like a compulsion, really, to check your bed again. Like something will be different when you look at it a second time. You don't have time for this. But now you can't leave until you do. 'Sorry Archer, give me 30 more seconds,' you think as you pull your shoes on. 

The bed looks exactly the same. Still dirty, still abandoned, still-

Where is Dewey Seabird? 

You've had that rabbit since you were 2 and you'd slept with him nearly every night right up until you left. Sometimes you even brought him to Archer's when you stayed over. You thought the other kids would think you were weird if you brought him with you to the boxcar, though, so you left him on your bed. That's what's missing. He's not sticking out from under the blanket anymore. He's not under the blanket or under the bed. Did they really just come in here, take your buddy, and never come back? What the hell sense does that make? 

Something's not adding up and where you were previously enraged, now you're just unnerved. Something's not right. 

But you can focus on that later when it's safe. Right now, your phone is going crazy and it's well past time to find Archer. You owe him big time for making him wait so long.


End file.
